Webster's 1828 Dictionary
SHIFTER
n. 1. One that shifts; the person that plays tricks or practices artifice.
2. In ships, a person employed to assist the ship's cook in washing, steeping and shifting the salt provisions.
Webster's 1913 Dictionary
SHIFTER
SHIFTER Shift "er, n.
1. One who, or that which, shifts; one who plays tricks or practices artifice; a cozener. 'T was such a shifter that, if truth were known, Death was half glad when he had got him down. Milton.
2. (Naut. )
Defn: An assistant to the ship's cook in washing, steeping, and shifting the salt provisions.
3. (Mach. ) (a ) An arrangement for shifting a belt sidewise from one pulley to another. (b ) (Knitting Mach. ) A wire for changing a loop from one needle to another, as in narrowing, etc.
New American Oxford Dictionary
shifter
shift er |ˈSHiftər ˈʃɪftər | ▶noun [ usu. in combination ] a person or thing that shifts something: each morning the rock-shifters travel by donkey cart to start work. • a gearbox of a motor vehicle or a set of gear levers on a bicycle: a new, improved five-speed shifter.
Oxford Dictionary
shifter
shift ¦er |ˈʃɪftə (r )| ▶noun [ usu. in combination ] 1 a person or thing that shifts something: each morning the rock-shifters travel by donkey cart to start work. 2 N. Amer. a gearbox of a motor vehicle or a set of gear levers on a bicycle: a new, improved five-speed shifter.
The Wordsmith Dictionary